410 ISRAEL Another main article of faith was that Jehovah judges and recompenses, not after death (then all men were thought to be alike), but upon the earth. Here, however, but little account was taken of the individual ; over him the wheel of destiny remorselessly rolled ; his part was resignation, and not hope. Not in the career of the indi vidual but in the fate of families and nations did the righteousness of Jehovah find scope for its manifestation ; and this is the only reason why the religion could dispense with the conceptions of heaven and hell. For the rest, it was not always easy to bring the second article into cor relation with the first ; in practice the latter received the superior place. It need hardly be said that superstition of every kind also abounded. But the superstition of the Israelites had as little real religious significance as had that poetical view of nature which the Hebrews doubtless shared in greater or less degree with all the other nations of antiquity. G. Under King Jeroboam II., two years before a great earthquake that served ever after for a date to all who had experienced it, thera occurred at Bethel, the greatest and most conspicuous sanctuary of Jehovah in Israel, a scene full of significance. The multitude were assembled there with gifts and offerings for the observance of a festival, when there stepped forward a man whose grim seriousness Amos, interrupted the joy of the feast. It was a Judsean, Amos of Tekoa, a shepherd from the wilderness bordering on the Dead Sea. Into the midst of the joyful tones of the songs which with harp and tabor were being sung at the sacred banquet he brought the discordant note of the mourner s wail. For over all the joyous stir of busy life his ear caught the sounds of death : " the virgin of Israel is fallen, never more to rise ; lies prostrate in her own land with no one to lift her up." He prophesied as close at hand the downfall of the kingdom which just at that moment was rejoicing most in the consciousness of power, and the deportation of the people to a far-off northern land. There was something rotten in the state of Israel in spite of the halcyon days it enjoyed under Jeroboam II. From the indirect results of war, from changes in the tenurs and in the culture of the soil, from defective administration of justice, the humbler classes had much to suffer ; they found that the times were evil. But it was not this that caused Amos to foresee the end of Israel, not a mere vague foreboding of evil that forced him to leave his flocks ; the dark cloud that threatened on the horizon was plain enough the Assyrians. Once already at an earlier date they had directed their course south westwards, without, however, on that occasion becoming a source of danger to the Israelites. But now that the bulwark against the Assyrians, Aram of Damascus, was falling into ruins, a movement of these against Lebanon in the time of Jeroboam II. opened to Israel the alarming prospect that sooner or later they would have to meet the full force of the irresist ible avalanche. What then 1 The common man was in no position truly to estimate the danger ; and, so far as he apprehended it, he lived in the firm faith that Jehovah would not abandon His people in their straits. The governing classes prided themselves on the military resources of Israel, or otherwise tried to dismiss from their minds all thought of the gravity Amos of. the situation. But Amos heard the question distinctly predicts enough, and did not hesitate to answer it : the downfall of throw of ^ srae l * s i mmm ent. It was nothing short of blasphemy to Israel by utter anything of this kind, for everything, Jehovah Him- Jehovah. self included, depended on the existence of the nation. But the most astounding thing has yet to come ; not Asshur, but Jehovah Himself, is bringing about the over throw of Israel ; through Asshur it is Jehovah that is triumphing over Israel. A paradoxical thought as if the national God were to cut the ground from under his own feet ! For the faith in Jehovah as the God of Israel was a faith that He intervenes on behalf of His people against all enemies, against the whole world ; precisely in times of danger was religion shown by staying oneself upon this faith. Jehovah might indeed, of course, hide His face for a time, but not definitively; in the end He ever arose at last against all opposing powers. "The day of the Lord" was an object of hope in all times of difficulty and oppres sion ; it was understood as self-evident that the crisis would certainly end in favour of Israel. Amos took up the popular conception of that day ; but how thoroughly did he change its meaning ! Woe to them who long fur the day of the Lord ! What to you is the day of the Lurd ] It is darkness, not light." His own opposition to the popular conception is formulated in a paradox which he prefixes as theme to the principal section of his book : j " Us alone does Jehovah know," say the Israelites, drawing from this the inference that He is on their side, and of course must take their part. "You only do I know," Amos represents Jehovah as saying, "therefore do I visit upon you all your sins." If the question, Whereon did Jehovah s relation to Israel ultimately rest? be asked, the answer, according to the 1 popular faith, must substantially be that it ret ted on the
fact that Jehovah was worshipped in Israel and not among
the heathen, that in Israel were His altars and His dwell ing. His cultus was the bond between Him and the nation ; when therefore it was desired to draw the bond still closer, the solemn services of religion were redoubled. But to the conception of Amos Jehovah is no judge capable of accepting a bribe ; with the utmost indignation he repudiates the notion that it is possible to influence Kim by gifts and offerings. Though Israel alone lias served Him he does not on that account apply any other standard t j it than to other nations (chaps, i., ii.). If Israel is better known to Him, it does not follow that on that account He shuts His eyes and blindly takes a side. Neither Jehovah nor His prophet recognizes two moral standards ; right is ! everywhere right, wrong always wrong, even though com- | mitted against Israel s worst enemies (ii. 1). What Jehovah demands is righteousness, nothing niora and nothing less ; what he hates is injustice. Sin or offence to the Deity is a thing of purely moral character; with such emphasis this doctrine had never before been heard.
- Morality is that for the sake of which all other things
- exist ; it is the alone essential thing in the world. It is
jno postulate, no idea, but at once a necessity and a fact, | the most intensely living of personal [towers Jehovah j the God of Hosts. In wrath, in ruin, this holy reality ! makes its existence known; it annihilates all that is hollow and false. Amos calls Jehovah the God of Hosts, never the God of Jehovah Israel. The nation as such is no religious conception to tlie Go(1 ! him ; from its mere existence he cannot formulate any article of faith. Sometimes it seems as if he were denying Israel s prerogative altogether. lie does not really do so, but at least the prerogative is conditional and involves a heavy responsibility. The saying in iii. 2 recalls Luke xii. 47. The proposition "Jehovah knows Israel" is in the mouth of Amos almost the same thing as " Israel knows Jehovah" ; save only that this is not to be regarded as any merit on Israel s part, but as a manifestation of the grace of Jehovah, who has led His people by great deeds and holy men, and so made Himself known. Amos knows no other truth than that practical one which he has found among his own people and nowhere else, lying at the foundation of life and morality, and which he regards as the product of a divine providential ordering of history.
